Monty Python’s And Now For Something Completely Different – Free – (1971)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – Free – One of the great films directed by Frank Capra and starring Jimmy Stewart. (1939)

My Best Friend’s Birthday – Free – First film directed by Quentin Tarantino. Version on YouTube here. (1987)

My Brother is Coming – Free – A Hungarian film by Michael Curtiz, who went on to direct Casablanca. (1919)

Murder in Harlem – Free – Film by Oscar Micheaux, the first African-American to produce a feature-length film (1920) and sound movie (1931). His films provide a window into American views on race. (1935)

Night and Fog – Free – Alain Resnais’s film on the Holocaust. Truffaut called it the greatest film ever made. (1955)

Night Tide –Free– A thriller starring Dennis Hopper early in his career. YouTube version here. (1961)

Nostalghia – Free – Soviet film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. (1983)

The Fast And The Furious – Free – A 1950s B-action film written by Roger Corman. (1955)

The Great Dictator – Free – Charlie Chaplin loathed fascism and personally resented Adolf Hitler’s expropriation of The Tramp’s famous toothbrush moustache. He took his revenge with this hilarious and formally inventive film, released one year before America’s entry into World War II. (1940)

The ThreePenny Opera – Free – G.W. Pabst’s early screen adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s subversive social satire set in Victorian London. The film is in German, with no English subtitles, but is well worth watching for its visual mastery and the striking vintage performances from Weill’s score, including a memorable turn by Lotte Lenya as Jenny. (1931)

Un Chant d’Amour – Free – French writer Jean Genet’s only film. Because of its explicit (though artistically presented) homosexual content, the 26-minute movie was banned and disowned by Genet later in his life. 1950

Downhill – Free – In this silent film, a public schoolboy “takes the blame for a friend’s theft and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures.” Also released under the title, When Boys Leave Home. (1927)

Dick Tracy – Free – A 15 episode film series that brought Dick Tracy to the silver screen. (1937)

Guest in the House – Free – Directed by John Brahm, the noir film stars Anne Baxter, Ralph Bellamy, Aline MacMahon. (1946)

He Walked by Night – Free – Film-noir drama, told in semi-documentary style, follows police on the hunt for a resourceful criminal. This move became the basis for Dragnet, and stars Jack Webb. YouTube version.

Port of New York – Free – Two narcotics agents go after a gang of murderous drug dealers who use ships docking at the New York harbor to smuggle in their contraband. First film in which Yul Brynner appeared. (1949)

Rich and Strange – Free – This Alfred Hitchcock film was released during a dry period between The Lodger (1927) and his breakthrough hitsThe Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps, both listed here. (1931)

The Man Who Knew Too Much – Free – Starring Peter Lorre, this film was the most acclaimed film of Hitchcock’s British period. Hitchcock remade the film for an American audience with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day in 1956. (1934)

The Man with the The Golden Arm – Free – Directed by Otto Preminger. Starring Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak. Nominated for three Academy Awards. (1955)

Woman on the Run – Free – After Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott) is the sole witness to a gangland murder, he goes into hiding and is trailed by Police Inspector Ferris (Robert Keith), his wife, Eleanor (Ann Sheridan), and newspaperman, Danny Leggett (Dennis O’Keefe). YouTube version here. (1950)

Young and Innocent – Free – Originally released in the US as The Girl Was Young, this Alfred Hitchcock film was based on Josephine Tey’s novel A Shilling for Candles. (1937)

Angel and the Badman – Free – A black and white Western starring John Wayne and Gail Russell. Considered a radical departure from the western genre at the time. Internet Archive version here. (1947)

Any Gun Can Play – Free – Spaghetti western starring Gilbert Roland, Edd Byrnes and George Hilton. Directed by Enzo G. Castellari. (1967)

Blue Steel – Free – Western film with John Wayne playing a U.S. Marshal trying to capture the Polka Dot Bandit. Some consider it the best of the Wayne Lone Star films. Alternative version on YouTube here. (1934)

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon– Free – Directed by John Ford with John Wayne. Part of Ford’s trilogy of films focusing on the US Cavalry. Alternate version here. (1949)

Stagecoach – Free – John Ford’s landmark western with John Wayne. Highly influential film that Orson Welles watched more than 40 times while making Citizen Kane. Black & white version here. (1939)

Tall in the Saddle – Free – Movie stars John Wayne as a cowboy and Ella Raines as his fierce bullwhip-brandishing love interest. (1944)

Texas Terror – Free – A young John Wayne in a romantic western. (1935)

The American West of John Ford – Free– A documentary encapsulating the career and Western films of director John Ford, featuring interviews with John Wayne, James Stewart and Henry Fonda. (1971)

The Conqueror – Free – The infamous and “lost” classic film, produced by Howard Hughes, directed by Dick Powell, and starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan. (1956)

The Dawn Rider – Free – John Wayne plays John Mason, a man avenging his father’s murder. A western directed by Robert Bradbury. (1935)

The Desert Trail – Free – Early Western with John Wayne. According toWesternClippings, not Wayne’s finest hour. (1935)

The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe – Free – Klaus Kinski stars in spaghetti western about a Chinese immigrant, who comes to America and fights to free Mexican slaves. (1972)

The Great Train Robbery – Free – Early western film by Edwin S. Porter. A landmark in narrative filmmaking (1903)

The Lawless Frontier – Free – B Western starring John Wayne and directed by Robert Bradbury. (1934)

The Lucky Texan –Free – Jerry Mason (played by John Wayne) and Jake Benson become partners and strike it rich with a gold mine. (1934) They then find their lives complicated by bad guys and a woman. (1934)

The Man From Utah – Free – The Marshal sends John Weston (John Wayne) to a rodeo to see if he can find out who is killing the rodeo riders who are about to win prize money. (1934)

The Outlaw – Free – This western made Jane Russell a huge star. Howard Hughes officially directed the film but Howard Hawks worked behind the scenes. (1943)

City Lights – Free – The funny and moving tale of a tramp who falls in love with a blind girl, City Lights is one of Charlie Chaplin’s greatest works. A silent film released two years after the arrival of “talkies,” it was nevertheless a huge popular and critical success. Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky all placed City Lights on their list of the ten greatest films ever made. (1931)

Das Wandernde Bild – Free – A silent, black and white film directed by Fritz Lang released in 1920.

Downhill – Free – In this silent Hitchcock film, a public schoolboy takes the blame for a friend’s theft and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures. Also released under the title, When Boys Leave Home. (1927)

Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde –Free – John Barrymore stars in the renowned silent adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic. (1920)

Ten Days That Shook the World – Free – Originally called Oktyabr, Sergei Eisenstein’s film documents the Russian Revolution of 1917. A masterpiece by a pioneering filmmaker. (1928)

The Adventurer –Free – Charlie Chaplin plays an escaped convict who falls into favor with a wealthy family after he saves a young lady. (1917)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – Free – This silent film directed by Robert Wiene is considered one of the most influential German Expressionist films and perhaps one of the greatest horror movies of all time. (1920)

The Gold Rush – Free – The film Charlie Chaplin most wanted to be remembered for. (1924)

The Birth of a Nation – Free – Directed by DW Griffith. A landmark work in film history (1915) with racist undertones. (1915) Also see his later movie, Abraham Lincoln, plus many other DW Griffith films here.

The Golem: How He Came Into the World – Free – A follow-up to Paul Wegener’s earlier film, “The Golem,” about a monstrous creature brought to life by a learned rabbi to protect the Jews from persecution in medieval Prague. Based on the classic folk tale, and co-directed by Carl Boese. (1920)

Trip to the Moon / Le Voyage dans la lune – Free – French black & white silent sci-fi film loosely based on two novels: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells. (1902)

Voyage in Time – Free – 63-minute feature documentary that documents the travels of Andrei Tarkovsky in Italy. (1983)

Warhol’s Cinema – A Mirror for the Sixties – Free – 64 min documentary on Andy Warhol’s cinema of the sixties, made for Channel 4 in association with THE FACTORY, MOMA and the Whitney Museum of Art. (1989)

Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe – Free – Herzog loses a bet to Errol Morris and eats a shoe with the help of chef Alice Waters. (1980)

The Junky’s Christmas – Free – Short claymation film starring (and written by) William S. Burroughs. Danny the Carwiper spends Christmas Day trying to score a fix, but finds the Christmas spirit instead. Produced by Coppola. (1993)

The Old Man and the Sea – Part 1 and Part 2 – Aleksandr Petrov won the Academy Award for Short Film for this film that follows the plot of Ernest Hemingway’s classic 1952 novella. (1999)

The Sand Castle – Free – Short animated film about the sandman and the creatures he sculpts out of sand. 1977 Oscar-winner for Best Animated Short Film.

The Sinking of the Lusitania – Free – Early animator Winsor McCay documents in 12 minutes the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. (1918)

The Spirit of ’43 – Free – Disney propaganda film made for the American government. Features Donald Duck. (1943)

The Story of Stuff – Free – Animated fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. (2007)

The Tell-Tale Heart – Free – Animated version of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic from 1953. Narrated by James Mason.

Google Video: For some time now, major classics have appeared on Google’s site. You will find many such films above.

Australian Screen Archive: The Australian National Film and Sound Archive provides free and worldwide access to over 1,000 film and television titles – a treasure chest of down-under video 100 years in the making.

B Minus Movies: AMC is your new go-to site for B-movies by the likes of John Carpenter (Dark Star) and Roger Corman (Saga of the Viking Women). Want to see international icons before they made it big? Check out Raquel Welch in A Swingin’ Summer or kung-fu king Sonny Chiba inTerror Beneath the Sea. Looking for the unexpected? How about The Ruthless Four, a spaghetti Western starring Klaus Kinski.

Babelgum Films: Babelgum’s goal is to act as an international ‘glue’, bringing a huge range of professional and semi-professional films to a global audience – like a modern-day Tower of Babel. They’re also making an effort to get their content to smartphones. They have an iPhone app now and apps for other phones on the horizon. Get more detail on the mobile apps here.

BestOnlineDocumentaries: As one reader previously told us, “This site is a bit out of date and some of the links are broken, but it’s still a great compilation of online documentaries.” For more documentaries, you should also see Snagfilms mentioned below.

Big Five Glories: Presents classic films in the public domain within an attractive user interface. Makes the films a pleasure to watch.

Classic Cinema Online: This site nicely pulls together hundreds of classic films, ranging from Action to Westerns and even old cinema shorts and news reels.

ClearBits: This new site provides hosting and distribution for open licensed (Creative Commons) media and datasets. They have a section devoted just to movies, and all their content can be downloaded without cost.

Clicker: The Internet Television guide tells you where you can watch free and paid-for movies online.

Crackle.com: If you’re looking for more mainstream movies, here you go. This is Sony’s online movie play. Note: there’s probably some geo-blocking that comes with this. Also, one of our readers has also suggested the UK-based Blinkbox, which seems to offer another platform for more mainstream films.

Creative Commons: The folks who gave us the Creative Commons license host a wiki where you can find a good number of freely available films. Handy and worth keeping an eye on. I’d also suggest keeping tabs onCC’s Video blog.

Europa Film Treasures: Thanks to Europa Film Treasures, you can spend hours looking back through an archive of European film. Theses films range from “comedy to science fiction, from westerns to animation, from erotic to ethnological movies.” Highly recommended by our readers.

Film Annex: This site has one of the largest selections of online films for you to watch or download. You can find free classic movies and television shows right here. And you’ll also find at the Film Annex many films from independent filmmakers and directors. The site gives you the ability to download or stream films to your PC, laptop or iPhone. The films are ad-supported.

FMO: FreeMoviesOnline features a large selection of public domain films.

Hulu: Unfortunately Hulu limits its programming to a US audience (a policy that really needs to change), but it’s the 800 pound gorilla in the US, and there are some decent films here. You will find some Hulu titles sprinkled in above.

IMDB: This is perhaps a little redundant, but the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) also hosts some free online films (as well as TV shows) on its site. From what I can tell, it’s done in partnership with Hulu. But this collection has the advantage of pointing you to some decent films. Click here and scroll down. You can also find another re-packager of Hulu flix over atVeoh.com.

Jaman: Jaman is mainly a pay-per-download site that focuses on indie-style films, but they do host some free movies. Even though they have a page devoted to their free films, it’s actually not that easy to find the freebies. You have to fish around a little.

NFB.ca: NFB.ca is a web site where you can watch films produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It offers access to 100s of documentaries, animated films and trailers. You can also access this collection via a free iPhone app. (p.s. You should also check out our own free iPhone app, which will let you download free audio books, free courses, free language lessons, and other types of intelligent media.)

Open Flix: This YouTube channel features hundreds of full length films. And they’re all apparently free and legal. A very nice resource.

OVGuide: If you’re looking for more free films, you should pay this site a visit. OVGuide is an up-to-date guide to online video, including TV shows, movies, and video games. It offers another way to find free movies online.

QuickSilverScreen: This site essentially puts torrents online and lets you watch films posted by other users, including many new films. It’s hard to believe that this site is entirely kosher, but it’s very popular (one of the top 3,000 sites on the web) and hardly a closely held secret.

SnagFilms: SnagFilms “finds the world’s most compelling documentaries, whether from established heavyweights or first-time filmmakers, and makes them available to a wide audience.” You can watch full-length documentary films for free. Currently includes over 550 films.

Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive: This online catalog “provides access to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive. The Archive serves as a comprehensive informational and archival resource worldwide for moving image materials pertaining to the Holocaust and related aspects of World War II.”

The Auteurs.com: Though this site typically offers arts films on a pay-per-view basis, it does feature a series of free films. Each month, a free film is featured (see example here). The site also hosts free international films restored by Martin Scorsese’s Word Cinema Foundation, mentioned below. And you can find another set of free films here.